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This collection enriches and complicates the history of prose fiction between Richardson and Fielding at mid-century and Austen at the turn of the century by focusing on it-narratives, a once popular form largely forgotten by readers and critics alike. The volume also advances important work on eighteenth-century consumer culture and the theory of things. The essays that comprise The Secret Life of Things thus bring new texts, and new ways of thinking about familiar ones, to our notice. Those essays range from the role of it-narratives in period debates about copyright to their complex relationship with object-riddled sentimental fictions, from anti-semitism in Chrysal to jingoistic imperialism in The Adventures of a Rupee, from the it-narrative as a variety of whore's biography to a consideration of its contributions to an emergent middle-class ideology.
Context in Literary and Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary volume that deals with the challenges of studying works of art and literature in their historical context today. The relationship between artworks and context has long been a central concern for aesthetic and cultural disciplines, and the question of context has been asked anew in all eras. Developments in contemporary culture and technology, as well as new theoretical and methodological orientations in the humanities, once again prompt us to rethink context in literary and cultural studies. This volume takes up that challenge. Introducing readers to new developments in literary and cultural theory, Context in Literary and Cult...
This volume of especially commissioned essays explores the geography of, and the role of geography in, national and proto-national identity. Place and national identity are bound together. Attachment to the one is almost always inseparable from the sense of the other. Yet, as this volume shows, the articulated self-conscious linking of place and identity is by and large a modern phenomenon that took root in nineteenth-century Europe. The formation of supranational states and the much vaunted globalization of culture led many to believe there would be a progressive dilution of national identities and a growing agglomeration of places and nations into larger state units. Precisely the reverse has taken place. This book explores the connections between identity and homeland, showing how a place may be perceived as archetypal, endowed with love and celebrated in music and poetry, yet be a pretext for violence and war. It examines the evolution of ideas about identity and their manifestations in a wide variety of settings, from the former Soviet Union to the island states of the South Pacific.
Archaeological Theory, 2nd Edition is the most current and comprehensive introduction to the field available. Thoroughly revised and updated, this engaging text offers students an ideal entry point to the major concepts and ongoing debates in archaeological research. New edition of a popular introductory text that explores the increasing diversity of approaches to archaeological theory Features more extended coverage of 'traditional' or culture-historical archaeology Examines theory across the English-speaking world and beyond Offers greatly expanded coverage of evolutionary theory, divided into sociocultural and Darwinist approaches Includes an expanded glossary, bibliography, and useful suggestions for further readings
When Theatres of Memory was first published in 1994, it transformed the debate about what is to be considered history and questioned the role of “heritage” that lies at the heart of every Western nation’s obsession with the past. Today, in the age of Downton Abbey and Mad Men, we are once again conjuring historical fictions to make sense of our everyday lives. In this remarkable book, Samuel looks at the many different ways we use the “unofficial knowledge” of the past. Considering such varied areas as the fashion for “retrofitting,” the rise of family history, the joys of collecting old photographs, the allure of reenactment societies and televised adaptations of Dickens, Samuel transforms our understanding of the uses of history. He shows us that history is a living practice, something constantly being reassessed in the world around us.
Making Mind: Moral Sense and Consciousness in Philosophy, Science, and Literature posits the genesis of narrative as an adaptive function stemming from consciousness and moral sense. The book is unique with its idea of the individual character evolving narrative in relation to the group. Central to the argument is the claim that prehistorically, consciousness and moral sense intersected to form narrative. More than addressing the origin of story, the book examines and explains the evolution of narrative. The book is an interesting study of how our species-inherited moral sense can differ dramatically from one individual to another. While mores pertain to a group, narrative comes from and is processed by the individual and reaches its high point in the novel. We see how the moral sense works in characters as a monitor, and we feel it operating in us as readers in terms of approval, or not.
Social Reform in Gothic Writing provides a transatlantic view of the politically transformative power that Gothic texts effected during the Revolutionary era (1764-1834) through providing fresh readings of canonical and non-canonical writing in a wide variety of genres.
Traces the evolution of the modern American dream house from seventeenth-century England to the present.